I feel like I should clearly state from the beginning that I am not a fan of President Trump. Please do not hate me for this article. However, after reflecting on the results of the election, like many, I was left puzzled as to how such a divisive, sexist, racist man could win over 73 million votes. Yes, you can consider the plausible view that those who voted for Trump are sexist and racist, and that would not initially seem wrong, because if you vote for a man who is racist and sexist where does that leave you? What sort of character do you have? I do wholeheartedly believe that there are many racist and sexist Americans, you only have to look at the sickening treatment of black people in America to see this.

Maybe I am just naïve, but I sincerely hope and believe that there are not 73 million racist and sexist Americans. If this is true, this raises the question of why did so many people vote for Trump? Is he actually not as bad as the media paints him out to be? I am going to try to understand why Trump won so many votes.

I found an informative article from Business Insider which shows some positive things Trump’s administration achieved. The first positive is that he established the Space Force, which protects the US’s assets in space. The next thing is one that I do not see as a positive, but I am sure that many of Trump’s loyal Republican fanbase would. Trump signed a tax reform bill, which resulted in a reduction in corporation tax, which debatably helped to grow the economy; for Republicans, the economy is a key issue, so this may well have attracted them to four more years of Trump.

The next accomplishment that the article lays out is the ‘First Step Act’ which sought to reform the criminal justice system. This act had a number of effects, which I view as positive, such as reducing minimum sentences for drug crimes as well as expanding early release programmes. I believe that the US criminal justice system is broken and inherently racist and, therefore, that any reform of it is a step in the right direction. However, I will say that this bill is clearly only the ‘first step’ and I do not think that it goes far enough in bringing around positive change.

The final one of Trump’s achievements listed in the article was the assassination of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. I would suggest that this is likely to have pleased many Republican voters, as statistically, they are more likely to view ISIS as a major threat. I would say, however, that to put it nicely, his ridiculously long speech announcing it took away any improvement the achievement had on his image as a leader.

Moving away from the Business Insider article, I think that another reason Trump got so many votes was due to the fact that Joe Biden was hardly the ideal candidate on the Democratic ticket. Although I believe he was a far superior candidate to Trump, his policy positions were not nearly as progressive and ambitious as they could have been. Although I do not believe that Biden is racist, especially in comparison to Trump, he certainly does not have a perfect record on race issues. Kamala Harris even attacked him on his race record in the first democratic primary debate. This lack of a much better alternative to Trump, that had a realistic chance of winning, may have led some Republicans to simply back the incumbent.

Although I could write plenty on the negatives of the Trump presidency, and prove why he should not have, in my opinion, won nearly as many votes as he did, I just wanted to try and understand why so many Americans voted for him. Although I do not think these reasons justified so many votes, they portray an interesting insight into some of the reasons he won so many.

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